Hi, How you doing Justin here for our lesson: 132 which is the C chord. The last of the big eight which is, the main eight
Open Chord shapes that you learn when you are
starting your guitar journey. And this is the last one, this is the C chord. Now, a lot of people find the C chord
a little awkward. It’s maybe not quite as stretchy
as the G chord. Well, at least not acrosswise but it is lengthwise. It’s a little bit funny. So let’s go to a close up and see if we can sort out
the different ways of getting this stretch. It is just a matter of practising it. I’ve never ever-ever-ever had a student
who’s not been able to do it. I have had students instead
who really struggled and they felt like
they were never going to do it. But, if you persevere you will find that the C chord
is pretty damn easy. Let’s have a look at it. Here we are looking at the C chord. Now, hopefully
it doesn’t look too bad but it is a little bit of a stretch. So, let’s go through the problems
and solutions for this chord. So, first one : first finger : first fret, second string. Nothing on the E string,
and nothing on the G string. There’s nothing on the first string,
and nothing on the third string. Second finger is reaching over here to the second fret, at the fourth string. And then, third finger’s gonna stretch over here, to the third fret of the fifth string. Now, there are a few different tips
we can give you for getting this stretch nice First of all, if you play really square like this, it’s actually quite difficult to do with the fingers parallel to the frets. I can feel that’s stretching my hand
doing that right now. Now, if you look at the way
that I’m doing it, I’m kind of laying the fingers over
a little bit. Now, if I took my hand off, they kind of
that looks like that they are in a line, they’re all kind of touching each other. And you can see that the angle now
is kind of that way a little bit. it’s actually
they’re kind of pointing at my eyes. Whereas that way
they’re pointing at the ceiling. We just turn it round a little bit like that, and you get a bit more of a… It definitely makes it easier to play .
Yeah ? So this way, you really have to stretch
the distance between your fingers. Here, you’re just changing
how far each finger is reaching out. That makes a big difference
for that one. Now, you can probably see
that my thumb is flopping over there. But actually, we want to get
that thumb behind for you now. Later on you can use
your thumb over here, but for you now,
back behind. Now, the other important thing
with the C chord is that we want to make sure that the tip of this third finger is muting, the sixth string. So, it shouldn’t press down on this string. The very tip of the finger
just touches the string and stops it from ringing out. Now, the thing that you’ll find here
with this chord as well, especially when you’re going to do
the strum – pick up – strum, is that there are quite a few places where fingers can lean over
and touch other strings. So, . . . There is the correct sound for it Now, the first note,
which is the fifth string, you’re probably not going to have
too much trouble with it. Pretty straight forward. The next note, here which is the fourth string, it’s very likely here that your third finger
is going to be leaning over and touching that fourth string. So, that’s the first thing
you wanna look out for is making sure that finger is nice and up. Then we have the Open G string, which, of course, this finger,
if it’s leaning over a bit too flat, will mute that G string. First finger
should be ok. Not many people have trouble with that note. But then,
the open E string if the first finger is leaning over
a little bit too much you’ll get the open E string muted. So, really, the trick with C chord is, one : don’t be too squared like this. Allow your fingers to be
a little bit of an angle. And also to make sure that
you’re really on the points with the fingers. Don’t let them lay down too flat or you’ll just always be muting
the strings next to them. Ok, I hope you had fun
stretching out for that C chord. It’s a little bit of a tough one – but it’s not that bad – and it just seems impossible right now, but, after a week or two, your fingers will have all limbered up and it’ll be a lot easier. After a month or two, you’ll wonder why you ever had
a problem with it at all because it’s not that bad
in the grand scheme of guitar chords.

When I first started picking up guitar, I used 1 song that was really booming at the moment on my country, and the first chord in that song is C lol, so C was the first chord that I able to play decently, gotta thank the band that create that song 😀

Excellent lesson to supplement my blog post. I've embedded this lesson in my blog post that teaches how to build the three principal chords of a C Major scale. http://guitaringindia.com/building-3-principal-chords-key-c-major-diatonic-scale-guitar

I'm having a real hard time with this chord. I can get it to ring out cleanly quite easily, but it places a lot of tension and strain on my index finger. I'm ensuring that my fingers are slanting correctly, but it hurts quite a bit. This is the first chord where I've encountered such a problem. Guess I just need to stick with it?

In so bad at chords I can play any riff wit notes but when it comes to chords I’m always muting something I don’t want to but I’m playing on a mini strat maybe once I get myself a nice full size strat I’ll be able to have enough space. C and a are the hardest to not mute strings I don’t mean to mute ! 😩

I've played guitar for over twenty years now and I'm just sitting down to learn chords. If your new to guitar please watch stuff like this. It seems boring but I Don't even hold my guitar properly so I can't play chords like this. Learn from the beginning and take the time to do it right. Don't get me wrong I can play but tabs sucks man learn like a pro. Thanks for these videos man.

Justin's fingers definitely look thin and long to me. I get that he may have had smaller fingers when he first learned this but looking down at my short, thick, dumpy fingers is really demotivating, haha. I'll persevere though.

Okay so what I'm getting from this is that it's basically like playing your first ever chord. Mine was a G and I was like "omg why did I buy this pos guitar, im shit" but now it's so easy I don't have to look. Hopefully it's the same with this!!! wish me luck lmao

Thank you VERY much. I've been having a hell of a time with the C chord. Your suggestion to angle the fingers really helps. My bloody fat fingers kept muting the adjacent string but angling the fingers is getting me closer! Once again, TYVM!!!

this one has me pretty much ready to quit, the only way I can even come close is by playing twister and almost standing the guitar upright and even with that and placing my fingers with my other hand it's just not happening and I cannot see how I can do it actually playing ever if I cannot even using my right hand to move fingers on my left into position, I will try for a week or so more but this one I just cannot see how I could do it unless I either make my middle finger longer or file away some of the meat on the end of my fingers.

Well it's been 3 months for me and hitting a c chord is not a problem at all but changing to it fast enough to keep rhythm is still a massive problem. It's probably the most difficult chord for me to change to, even more difficult than the fmaj7 which I haven't been doing for nearly as long. I do not know why I'm having so much trouble hitting the c chord smoothly while strumming. I really wish I could afford in person classes because I need to talk to someone and get 1 on 1 help.